Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD Named Babson’s 14th President

December 14, 2018

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Babson College’s Board of Trustees have named Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD, as the College’s 14^th president, effective July 1, 2019. He will succeed Dr. Kerry Healey, who announced that she would be stepping down at the end of this academic year.

Babson is the top-ranked college in entrepreneurship education.

President-elect Spinelli began his journey at Babson as an MBA student and later as a professor and administrator. He has spent his career at the intersection of academia, business, and philanthropy.

During his 14 years at Babson, he served as the Alan Lewis Chair in Global Management, Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division, Director of The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, and Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship and Global Management. An accomplished entrepreneur, Spinelli co-founded Jiffy Lube International. In 2011, he was inducted into Babson’s Alumni Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Spinelli will be the first Babson president who has led another university.

He served for 10 years as president of Philadelphia University, and, after leading the successful merger of Philadelphia and Thomas Jefferson universities, he was named Chancellor of Thomas Jefferson University. As president, he established the unique Kanbar College of Design, Engineering, and Commerce: one of America’s first transdisciplinary colleges. He championed the Master of Science in Sustainable Design, an award-winning, transdisciplinary, collaborative degree program that is among the most recognized Sustainable Design graduate degrees.

“Steve is a lifelong entrepreneur who has a proven record of success in business and academia,” said Babson Board of Trustees Chair Marla M. Capozzi MBA’96. “His experience and leadership abilities uniquely align with the College’s needs today and our vision for the future. We are very excited to welcome him back to Babson, where his journey began, to lead the College and our community into our next century,” she said.

“Babson has played an important and special role in my life and I am really honored to be returning to the community,” President-elect Spinelli said. “While higher education is facing many disruptions, together we can set a vision that will enable Babson to continue to lead and remain a beacon of innovation,” he said.

President-elect Spinelli earned his PhD in economics from The Management School, Imperial College, University of London, his MBA from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (1992), and his BA in economics from McDaniel College.

The 12-person Presidential Search Committees included faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, and governance members and was led by Bruce T. Herring ’87, P’19, a Babson trustee and former executive of Fidelity Investments.

“A crucial component of the process has been engaging with the Babson community on campus and around the world,” Herring said. “This engagement allowed us to hear what the community needed in a leader and helped us attract a deep, diverse, and talented pool of candidates. With Steve’s appointment, we believe that our search process has produced an exceptional outcome for Babson,” he said.

Starting in January, there will be numerous opportunities for members of the Babson community to welcome and engage with President-elect Spinelli during his transition.